Academic Corruption, the Israel Lobby, and 9/11, or, Why I have resigned from my emeritus status at the University of Sussex

by Kees van der Pijl, March 2019

On 3 November 2018, in reply to a Twitter message summing up a series of crimes ascribed to ‘Saudis’, beginning with their alleged responsibility for bringing down the Twin Towers, I posted, ‘Not Saudis, Israelis brought down the Twin Towers with help from Zionists in US Govt’. This was picked up by self-professed Jewish and pro-Israel organizations denouncing it as ‘anti-Semitic’. The accusation was accompanied by the identical demand of practically all complainants to strip me of my status as professor emeritus of the University of Sussex. The comments were duly reported in the Daily Mail, the Independent, and Russian Sputnik, and possibly others. No mention was made of the many supporting reactions, often accompanied by new documentary evidence and by the important enjoinder that the university should investigate, if anything, the claim being made, not the person making it.

Of course there is no denying that anti-Semites are roaming social media too, making it even more unattractive to investigate in depth any issue that involves the state of Israel and the Zionist networks supporting it. The anti-Semitism taboo on investigating the crimes of the Israeli state and in particular, its role in 9/11 and the War on Terror is in fact reinforced by these ‘fellow-travellers’. Yet however unpleasant their company, the global catastrophe unfolding before our eyes makes it mandatory to investigate its causes and driving forces. 18 years of widening war, around six million dead,1 and more and more countries thrown into chaos, should be enough to raise the question, Who was/is behind all this, beginning with the 9/11 attacks themselves? And who are more entitled than academics to provide an answer?